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Dyeing his hair is what saved his life

Love is the Child of an Endless War

My thanks to
J.K. Rowling for letting me have the Weasleys to play with, although not to
keep. This story is dedicated to the fans at alt.fan.harrypotter for
inspiring me with their creative thoughts and questions, especially to Lauren
and Donna (Grand Poobah) who love the Weasleys as much as I do. And of course,
to Troels, who loves them too, even if he won’t admit it. ;)

Dyeing his hair is
what saved his life. To be sure it was a heinous undertaking done without the
aide of magic. He’d been without his wand for so long it was entirely possible
he couldn’t have managed to do it with magic, anyway. Impossible to fathom,
though, that Muggle women did this to themselves intentionally, and without
benefit of pain medication.

The hair color had
been a definite obstacle barring his path to the free world. His shade of red
shouted a beacon. Now it was a soft-ashy brown. The color women tried to
disguise the most often. He’d thought about blonde, even a nice saturnine brunette,
but those were tough colors to pull off with skin the same shade as the belly
of a trout and a flock of freckles across the nose. His skin coloring was
unfortunate, really, because in this Slavic nation swarthy skin and coarse dark
hair would have been the ideal camouflage.

He’d pilfered a few
boxes of tan in a bottle from the razed hotel pharmacy. The pharmacy had
already been looted by the time he’d arrived the day after the bombs went off.
However, since instant tan wasn’t edible, didn’t make anyone high, and couldn’t
be sold on the black market, it was one of the few salvageable items
available. But the first application turned his incredibly fair skin a bizarre
shade of ocher that doesn’t occur naturally anywhere in the human gene pool. And
he didn’t have the pointed ears to pass himself off as a Nordic warrior elf.
The bizarre looking shade needed to be scrubbed off in painfully freezing
water. Hot water had been an unheard of luxury for so long he dealt handily
without it. It probably said somewhere in the instructions on the package that
results varied. Too bad they were written in Romanian, or Czech, or Russian.
His brother Charlie would know. Charlie was fluent in all three languages, but
he hadn’t seen Charlie in eight years. He hadn’t seen any of them in eight
years.

Pacing fretfully
for a few minutes, considering his options, he stopped momentarily to view his
transformation in what was left of the recently bombed embassy’s bathroom
mirror. The new hair color let him slip by the blockade, but it wouldn’t get
him past the border, or the wanted posters all around it. Trying to engineer
an escape from a war torn, third world country run by terrorists disguising
themselves as legitimate leaders had some benefits. A government that was too
corrupt to spend money on updated computers and quality Internet access was a
government that risked losing a prisoner of war at the border. Thank Merlin
for fuzzy photocopies. Now if the green contact lenses he’d taken out of the
eyeballs of that dead American in the blown-apart embassy worked out right, he
might not only be out of prison, he might be out of this magic forsaken country
and headed back home.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Meanwhile,
somewhere on the British Isles, two miscreants, one reformed, and one in
full-blown havoc-wreaking mode, faced each other down in the Headmaster’s
office at Hogwarts.

“Hand it over,
Jasper.” Jasper Weasley’s bony knees knocked together despite his defiance. It
was quite rare for his Uncle George to be so angry. His jaw clenched so tightly
that Jasper could see the pulse pounding there and the skin on the back of his
neck was nearly smoking with rage. The last time he’d been this peeved things
had turned out very poorly for Jasper’s backside.

Gulping, and swallowing,
Jasper feverishly tried to think his way out of this tight spot. Uncle George
knew that he had it, but knowing a thing and proving that same thing were
entirely different issues. George didn’t have facts, just reasonable
suspicion. “Un--Uncle George, I say I don’t have it. How m—m--any times must I
tell you?” Jasper stuttered out feeling a bit faint.

George Weasley,
frowning into his nephew’s narrow, freckled countenance, was thinking that
Jasper’s blue eyes, the very mirror of his darling mother’s, were ridden with
guilt and fear. No boy of eleven looked that fearful without a good reason. “And
I ought to know,” George reminisced to himself. He’d earned this
punishment, this constant torment, for all his years spent wreaking havoc in these
hallowed halls, terrifying teachers, pestering prefects, worrying his poor
mother to distraction with his outrageous conduct. Jasper was a visitation on
his soul.

Fred had earned
torment, too. But was Fred here at Hogwarts, summoned to deal with troublesome
young Jasper Weasley? No, Fred was at Weasley’s Wizarding Wheezes,
overseeing the stocking of Sugar Mice, bellowing at the Invisible Head Hat
supplier, tallying the till, probably shagging his new assistant on the new
dragon hide chaise he’d ordered for his office. In short, having much more fun
than George was at the moment.

Today’s owl had
arrived just after they’d opened up shop. The Hogwarts seal gave George a
stomachache every time he saw it now. Ever since Jasper had started attending
the greatest school of Witchcraft and Wizardry in the world, owls carrying
letters bearing that seal arrived regularly at George’s places of business.
They never brought him good news. Fred didn’t have to deal with it. Fred was
still single, and mercifully childless. George had married the love of his
life six years ago. She also happened to be his brother’s widow, and came
complete with two children.

It was Percy’s
final revenge. He’d gone off on a reconnaissance mission one bright autumn day
eight years ago and never came back. It was supposed to have been a relatively
standard assignment; recovery of a soldier captured or killed during the
Wizard’s war. Percy had the authority, he had the credentials, his paperwork
had all been in order, but what was ever standard about trying to recover
prisoners of war? George had taken on a few of those missions himself. He
bore a ten-inch wound on his left thigh from the blade of a Scimitar wielded by
an escaped Muggle prisoner who had been tortured into insanity and then
incarcerated because there was no more room in the mental hospitals. On the
same mission a Ministry of Magic military trained guard dragon had taken a hunk
out of his left forearm. Nice daily reminders of how simple reconnaissance
could be.

George counted his
wounds nominal compared to his brother Charlie’s. Vampires kidnapped him while
he was searching for Percy. They’d held Charlie hostage in the remote
Carpathian Mountains for nearly a year pending the fulfillment of their ‘Peaceable
Cohabitation Agreement’ with the Ministry of Magic. Charlie had been used
for food, hung upside down and almost drained to death. Interesting pattern of
fang marks they’d left on him. Charlie looked like a survivor of partial
decapitation. Mum always knitted him turtlenecks for Christmas now. But Percy,
poor Percy, he’d gotten the worst of it. They sent his wand back home to his
agonized wife in splinters. Claiming the prison barracks had been bombed by a
militant anti-Wizard action group and that there were no recognizable
survivors. Percy a very young man of 25, died. Leaving behind his beloved wife
Penelope, who was unknowingly almost two months pregnant with their second
child, and four year-old Jasper, his son.

George had never
had much in common with Percy. They’d never gotten on well. Never had very much
to say to one another, at least nothing very nice. The only thing they’d ever
really agreed upon was Penny. Percy had her. George wanted her. George had
fully resigned himself to the fact that his life would remain Penny-less. He
could buy whatever he wanted, but not his heart’s desire. Percy found her
first, Percy loved her first, and Penny was hopelessly enamored of the
miserable, arrogant, git. They had perfected the revolting, heavy lidded with
passion, across a crowded room, longing look. George kept his heart’s council
out of general human decency, loyalty to his brother, and the fact that Penny
would have thought him beneath scum if he had ever tried anything. Only Fred
knew his true feelings for sure, but Percy certainly suspected. Probably every
Weasley but Penny suspected that George was in love with his brother’s wife.

It was a ruthless
trick of fate that brought George to his heart’s desire. His brother’s death
was the cost and George wouldn’t have willingly paid that price for anything,
but when Percy was gone, George won Penny over. He loved her too much to let
her go to any another man and Jasper came as part of the package deal. George
couldn’t help thinking that somewhere in the great beyond Percy was absolutely
laughing his ass off right now watching him face down Jasper, a born and bred
trouble maker of the worst sort, in Draco Malfoy’s office. Malfoy, who had by
some twisted finagling of contacts and means had himself appointed Headmaster
of Hogwarts; there really wasn’t any justice in the world. Except for the
justice that George meant to mete out to Jasper’s hind end if he didn’t hand
over that damned Marauder’s Map.

“Second year
students don’t just ‘appear’ inside of the Shrieking Shack in Hogsmeade,
Jasper,” George bellowed, frustrated beyond belief. “I know this sodding
castle like the back of my hand, there are no magic portals into the village,
no time warp on the staircase. You’ve found a secret passageway, I know you
have, and there’s only one way you could have found it. You’ve stolen your
Uncle Harry’s map! After I forbade you to touch it! I forbade you to even
think about it! Hand it over to me now, or this is going to be the sorriest
day of your wretched young life!”

Jasper knew that he
was a genius, a verifiable, legitimate genius. No school could keep him
occupied enough, so he’d been primarily educated at home. His maternal
grandmother, Sophicleseus Gump, was an American born Muggle woman, a genius in
her own right. She’d arranged for his I.Q. to be tested at Harvard University
in the States. Jasper was now an official Muggle member of MENSA, the society
of Muggle high intellect. His maternal grandfather, Richard Clearwater, was
one of the most gifted and acclaimed Wizard historians alive. Jasper’s parents
had both graduated from Hogwarts at the tops of their class. He came from a
fine pedigree of bright, intellectual minds, yet he could not think of a
single, believable lie that would fool his Uncle George. Silence was golden.
Folding his arms, Jasper willed them to stop their trembling. Lifting his chin
in silent defiance, he refused to acknowledge his uncle’s accusations.

George was no
dimwit. He and Fred had made the cover of Young Wizards Weekly before
the age of twenty-one. They’d reached the million-galleon mark before age
twenty-five and were featured on the cover of Wizard Entrepenaurs as up
and coming Wizards to watch. Now, at the age of thirty, George was one of the
wealthiest Wizards in Great Britain. He and Fred had more money than the
handsome young British Muggle King. Goblins at Gringotts had named a whole
cavern after them: The Fred and George Weasley Cavern for the Ruthlessly
Wealthy.

Fred was invariably
listed, every single year, as one of Great Britain’s most sought after
bachelors. He and the handsome young Muggle King played unicorn polo together,
and argued good-naturedly over who was the better catch. The Weasley twins had
more power at the tips of their fingers than was decent to discuss, and had
made a few dangerous enemies to go with it. George wasn’t who he was, and
where he was, because he couldn’t handle a crisis. Still, this stubborn child
would defy him, infuriate him, drive him insane, and he loved the little git to
distraction. It was enough to make a grown man cry.

George started to
pace. Malfoy had given him ten minutes to make Jasper see reason. Ten
minutes. George paced, to and fro, in front of Malfoy’s fireplace. Then he
caught himself. George Weasley did not pace! Molly Weasley paced! Percy
Weasley used to wear out entire carpets with his pacing! George was fun,
cheerful, easy-going, relaxed, when he wasn’t just about to murder his wife’s
son. “Your headmaster wants to thrash you!” George announced whirling on
Jasper, ears flaming, hazel eyes glinting. “A Malfoy thrashing a Weasley, I
never thought I’d live to see the day! Jasper, you’re a disgrace! If you
insist on misbehaving, insist on defying your mother and me, at least have the
good sense not to get caught!”

Jasper shifted
uneasily, glancing between George’s furious face and the face of the clock on
the headmaster’s wall. It was the bleakest, most despotic clock he’d ever
seen. The hands were shaped like cat’s-o-nine-tails, in place of the numbers
were various brutal punishments, flogging, cleaning the owlery, scrubbing the
tiles in the Great Hall with a toothbrush, picking the lint out of Professor
Snape’s socks, it was so horrible. Jasper shuddered, much of his bravado lost.

“You won’t let him
thrash me, will you?” he asked George his voice hoarse with incipient terror.

Since the days of
old Dumbledore’s reign a few things had changed at Hogwarts. Dumbledore hadn’t
favored physical punishment. The current governor’s board thought it likely
that if Dumbledore had done more thrashing, particularly of a certain male
student who went by the name of Tom Riddle sixty-five years ago, and died just
ten years ago under the title of Lord Thingy, the Wizarding world would have many
fewer problems than it did just now. Therefore, thrashing at Hogwarts had been
reinstated, but only for incorrigible students and only with their parent’s
permission. However, George, and his twin brother Fred, had narrowly escaped
being flogged once back in their own wayward school days. He wasn’t about to
let Malfoy get his hands on Jasper.

“No,” George
answered him shortly. “But I have to do something, Jasper. This is the third
time this term that I’ve had to come to school because you’re in trouble. Do
you want me to bring you home? Is that it?”

Shuffling his feet,
staring down at the floor, Jasper sullenly responded, “No.”

George growled at
him. He had three minutes left, and hadn’t made much progress. If Malfoy
walked in now, it might very well mean suspension for Jasper. George would
have to cough up big galleons to buy him off this time. Penny would be beside
herself with worry that he’d been in trouble again. There was only one course
of non-violent action open to him, and if it didn’t work, well…“You’re confined
to the Gryffindor common room for a week, except for lessons and meals. You’ll
write two hundred lines, ‘There are no portal passageways into Hogsmeade.’ And
you’ll clean up the Great Hall every night after dinner for a week.”

“But…but”, Jasper
spluttered. “That means I’ll miss Quidditch practice, Uncle George! They’ll
throw me off the team, and our first match is coming up next month! I can’t
miss practice!” Jasper truly felt panicked. Quidditch was the only reason he
wanted to stay. He was the youngest Keeper on the Gryffindor team in a
century. He ran his slender long fingers through the raven black curls on his
head and gave them a tight twist.

“Merlin’s balls,”
George thought observing his nephew’s response to stress. “What a Percyish
thing to do.” Aside from his hair, and his eyes, Jasper was Percy all over
again. Tall for his age, too slender, too smart for his own good, stubborn as
a rock, and arrogant to boot, oh, and he had inherited an unfortunate tendency
towards mischief from his father’s younger twin brothers. George hated to do
it. He loved Quidditch every bit as much as Jasper did, he’d almost cried with
joy when he found out Jasper made the team. But this nonsense had to stop.

“That’s the deal,
Jasper. You offer it to Malfoy yourself, and hope to heaven he takes it.
You’d best try to convince your teammates that they won’t find a better Keeper
in the next week while you’re missing practice.”

Now it was Jasper’s
turn to pace, and it suited him. He prowled the room like a restless panther,
exactly the way Percy used to. Chewing his lip, twining his fingers through
his black curls, and swinging his slender head from side to side while he
debated his options. Finally he stopped and turned to George with an
acquiescent nod. George heaved a sigh of relief, and added sternly, “And,
Jasper, that map better find its way back into Harry and Ginny’s house, or I
will spank you myself.”

* * * * * * * * * * * *

“You’ll get it
back, Harry.” George promised his brother-in-law that evening in the Hogshead
Tavern, after visiting Harry’s house and confirming beyond any doubt that
Harry’s map was missing. He signaled the tavern maid to bring him another beer
and a shot of Fire Whiskey. Only Jasper ever inspired him to imbibe this much.

Harry chuckled; he
wasn’t overly concerned about his missing map, perhaps even foolishly
unconcerned. “I can’t figure out how he got it out of the safe. Ginny put a
powerful Blistered Fingers charm on that lock. That spell was some of
her finest charms work. The new Ministry paid her a bundle for the rights to
it. Even I couldn’t open the damned thing up.”

“What can’t he
figure out? He is a genius.” George explained to Harry who already knew it too
well. “The child is an evil genius. I just want to know what he’s been doing
with it! He’s got the most amazing criminal mind, he’s like…like…”

Harry took his ale
from the tavern maid and gave her a charming grin. His first ale was always on
the house, and she was the loveliest maid in the pub. Now that Aberforth was
gone, Madame Rosmerta had taken over running the Hogshead as well as continuing
to operate the Three Broomsticks. She’d cleaned the place up. Called in an
exterminator, and an exorcist. Making the Hogshead a virtually respectable
drinking establishment. Having two of the wealthiest, and most famous, Wizards
in the world as regular customers didn’t hurt her trade any, either.

Turning his
attention away from the voluptuous serving girl who’d brought him free ale back
to George, Harry said surely, “He’s exactly like Penny, and Percy, and you,
George. Don’t kid yourself that Jasper is anymore criminally minded than you
and Fred used to be. Anyway, the map rightfully belongs to him. Didn’t we
agree to give it to the oldest male Weasley who attended Hogwarts?”

“Jasper doesn’t
deserve having the map, Harry.” George protested vehemently, swigging his
beer. “He’s lied to me. He stole from you. Now he’s been caught sneaking out
of school. I should spank him for this, that’s what he deserves. Harry, he
gets caught! What sort of Weasley is that, I ask you? It’s worse than if we’d
given the map to Ron.”

Harry sipped his
tankard of ale slowly, thoughtfully musing. He wasn’t too worried about his
map. It wasn’t as if he really needed it anymore, but it would be the coldest
day in hell before he ever let it go to someone outside of the family. It was
part of their history together, his and the Weasley’s. When the timing was
right it would have been willingly passed on to the next generation. Jasper was
the oldest Weasley grandchild. By mutual accord the rightful heir to the map.
Still Jasper was very young yet, and too clever by half. Harry was concerned
for Jasper’s safety, and for George’s mental health because he was being
completely driven to distraction by the little beast.

At the moment Harry
and Ginny had no children of their own, but it wasn’t for the lack of
trying. Ginny had already been pregnant twice and lost them both. She was
finally pregnant again, but she was confined to complete bed rest and cross as
crabs about it. Harry had given up his Auror’s job, and its attendant
expectation of endless travel as a result. Accepting the temporary post of
Defense Against the Dark Arts professor at Hogwarts instead. A baby was
finally on the way, and some day, in the not so distant future, he might be in
George’s shoes, wailing into his ale over his offspring’s impending
prison-filled future.

Having to hire
Harry had tweaked Malfoy’s ill temper to no end. He made things miserable for
him to make up for it, and Harry returned the favor as often as possible.
Jasper had been a boon. He was instinctively inclined to rebel against Malfoy’s
prejudiced jurisdiction at Hogwarts, and the way he still relied on old
Wizarding money ties to accomplish his ends. Harry’s recent conversations with
Hogwart’s young headmaster went typically something like this:

”What’s the problem
now, Draco? No, no, I can’t say I do know who was responsible for storing the
flesh-eating slugs in the kitchen’s meat locker. Although I did rather wonder
why they’d become so restive lately. I guess we’ll all survive on vegetables,
and bread for awhile, aye?” Jasper was a vegetarian; he refused to eat
anything that had ever had a face. He was making an anonymous political
statement with regard to the school’s nutrition policy. It was a brilliant
tactic, really, and so very bad. He stood up to the conventions of the world
with his mother’s liberal backbone, his father’s bossy arrogance, and the sheer
damned perversity of his uncles.

“You don’t say,
Draco? Every pair of your boxer shorts was filled with Blast Ended Skrewts? I
am absolutely certain I locked those up securely in my office before I went
home last evening. Oh, yes, I agree it’s bad damage they do, lots of holes and
scorch marks to be sure. I understand Madame Pomfrey has an ointment for just
that sort of wound. Right, right, sounds like a terribly uncomfortable
location.”

Jasper’s work
again, the little fiend. Harry had seen him lurking maliciously in the corridor
outside of his office on his way home that night. He’d even stopped to chat,
“Hello, Jasper. Were you waiting to speak to me?”

“Oh, no, Uncle
Harry,” Jasper had refuted innocently, his dark curls glowing around his head
like a cherubic halo. “I’m just waiting for my roommate, Stubby Wood, to come
up from the dungeons. Off to do a bit of Quiddtich practice, you know? Would
you like to come and watch us play tonight?” Stubby Wood, Harry’s old
Quidditch team captain Oliver Wood’s son, popped out so confidently to confirm
Jasper’s story that Harry knew in a flash they were up to no good. How many
times had he and Ron run that same sort of gimmick?

Stubby’s given name
was Aurelius, but Stubby was the nickname he’d earned when he finished a
Quidditch tournament with a Beater that had been snapped in half by a rouge
Bludger. He whacked hell out of that Bludger every time it came within a foot
of his teammates using that little stub of wood and Gryffindor won the match by
fifty points. He was Oliver Wood’s son to be sure, Harry had thought while
watching that game. And he was Jasper’s best friend.

“I’m sorry I can’t
stay tonight, Jasper, but I’ll try to make a practice next week. Will that
do?” Harry offered kindly. He was truly very fond of his demonic nephew by
marriage. Jasper grinned good-naturedly, he had the exact sweet-faced smile
his mother had, and Harry had gone home to Ginny that night to tell her that
Jasper was plotting something big.

George didn’t know
the half of what Jasper had been up to lately; Harry ruminated. His constant
immersion in trouble stacked the deck against him. He was fated to be caught
occasionally. Harry wondered now if his desire to watch Malfoy squirm under
any circumstances had caused him to remain unwisely silent when it came to
Jasper’s actions. Then he remembered telling Ginny about the Blast-Ended
Skrewts in Malfoy’s shorts and the way she’d laughed until she cried about it.
Grinning into his ale Harry decided he wasn’t in the business of ratting out
his students, even if they happened to be his nephew.

“Well, George, I
think you’re maybe being a bit harsh on Jasper. He hasn’t gotten up to much
trouble that we didn’t used to. Besides, isn’t he getting to be too big to
spank?” Harry offered up his two sickles’ worth.

Glowering into the
bubbling amber brew, George quaffed his Fire Whiskey, and signaled for
another. “For as tall as Jasper’s grown, he’s still only eleven. I don’t like
to do it, but I will spank him if I think he needs it. Sure as hell I’ll never
give a sadist like Malfoy any reason to get his hands on him in my stead, and
I’d like to prevent Jasper from becoming so incorrigible he’s only deterred by
the threat of a flogging.”

“Hmmm. Like you and
Fred used to be?” Harry interspersed.

“Exactly like me
and Fred,” George admitted. “My mother whacked us regularly with her wand, or
the wooden cooking spoon, whichever she had to hand at the time. Fear of her
wrath if she caught on to us, or fear of Percy catching us and telling her what
we were up to is probably the only reason Fred and I never went to prison.”

Undoubtedly the
twins had deserved it, Harry reflected silently, Jasper probably did too.
Still, having grown up in a household where he was abused and beaten regularly,
Harry felt compelled to say, “Ginny’s been making me read all of these books
about babies, and child care. It’s all wretchedly dull, really, but the experts
seem to think that beating children has gone quite out of fashion. They’re all
recommending time-outs, revoking privileges, you know that sort of thing.”

With the very
bitterest of sarcastic eye-rolls, so expertly executed it was worthy of Percy,
George derided Harry’s stupid opinion. “Heaven save me from the experts and
the childless, Harry. Do you think I should take away his video game player?
He’ll just go and build himself another. Maybe you think I should confiscate
his wand? You don’t know what it’s like raising Jasper. Sure, it’s out of
fashion to beat children when they’re precious and helpless little things, why
then it’s positively wrong. But one day you turn around and they’re much
bigger than they used to be, plus they’re stealing your wand because you’ve
already confiscated theirs and they’re using it to curse their mother’s brand
new Jaguar convertible. The one you ordered six months in advance from the car
dealer to be sure she had it in time for her birthday.”

George gulped his
second Fire Whiskey, but he didn’t slur any of his words. Like Charlie, Fred
and George were built to hold their liquor. He swigged the Fire Whiskey around
his mouth until the steam rolled out of his ears, before letting it torch back
over his throat, fueling the furnace in his gut.

“Yes, then they’re
cursing their mother’s cherished new sports car to ride rampantly over the
Muggle neighbor’s brand-new, one hundred thousand pound electric fencing
system. Why? Because it’s cruel to the animals, that’s why. It gives
wandering cattle a poke, and it’s unkind. The fencing system was destroyed
beyond repair, the runaway Jag’s tires melted just in time to prevent it from
crushing Jasper to death, Penny’s in-dash stereo exploded, and it took animal
control authorities three days to round up all of the cows. You, Harry, you
might have taken away his video game player. I spanked him with my belt. He
did stop speaking to me, and he hardly said a word to anyone else for two
weeks, but he didn’t get into any more trouble for those two weeks either. And
let me tell you, it was the most peaceful two weeks of our entire married
life.”

Harry winced. He
knew the basics of this story already. Ginny had related it to him over dinner
one night the previous summer and they’d both been torn between shrieks of
horrified laughter, and genuine heartfelt horror. It was the stuff of Weasley
family legend. Every time he heard the hundred thousand pound figure, and
pictured the oozing, burning rubber seeping from beneath Penny’s new Jag he
still suffered a frisson of horror crinkling his scalp.

There was more to
the story, and Harry knew most of the rest of it as well, because it included a
rift, related to Jasper naturally, between Fred and George, who never argued
about anything, and Ginny, who’d taken George’s side of the argument, but not
without sympathy to Fred’s point of view. Harry couldn’t help being sickeningly
fascinated every time he heard the details. It was rather like watching the
Muggle news on his new television, when they replayed the video recordings of a
horrible tragedy over and over again, and no matter how much he wanted to, he
just couldn’t look away.

George suddenly
looked far more haggard than a young man should. He tipped up his beer, drained
it to the dregs, focused on Harry, now slurring slightly, and continued, “It
was too quiet, Harry, and I should have guessed the little demon was plotting
his revenge. He perfected the hex for turning lemon drops into sherbet acid
balls and cursed every lemon drop in the shop. One elderly woman lost her
tongue. It was pandemonium. Fred and I had lawsuits coming out of our ears.
Tongue replacement is no simple matter. I was going to spank Jasper again,
just to prove a point. But Fred, Mr. I-have-no-children-I’m-free-as-a-bird,
Weasley, talked me out of it. He said Jasper should pay restitution instead.
As if you’re going to get enough work out of an eleven year-old child to pay
off a quarter million pound liability settlement. Although, I’ll admit Jasper
works hard. Of course, I had threatened to spank him anyway if he didn’t do
everything Fred told him to. Fred was very smug about it all, until he caught
Jasper taking a percentage of every Skiving Snackbox he sold out of the till to
send to the child laborers in whatever third world country it is that our
supplier works out of.” George smirked at his twin’s foolishness.

It really wasn’t
funny, Harry reflected. Fred had tossed Jasper out of the store onto his rear,
and said some rather unkind things related to devil’s spawn, and Jasper’s
unnatural sire, before he stopped speaking to him altogether. Jasper was
devastated. George became defensive and angry on his behalf. Fred was too
stubborn about it all. And Ginny kept her twin brothers away from each other’s
throats by sheer dint of will. Family gatherings became rather dismal, tension
filled occasions for a while. It wasn’t until Jasper had earned enough money
to repay Fred and begged his forgiveness that he was reinstated into his
uncle’s good graces. Allowing Fred and George to mend their own quarrel. That
painful experience hadn’t taught him to behave any better than George’s
spanking had, Harry determined uneasily. It hadn’t stopped Jasper from
stealing that map right out from beneath his nose.

Jasper did have
powerfully redeeming qualities, however. Qualities that gave Harry a good deal
of hope for his future. He had a good conscience for one thing. He was willing
to admit when he was wrong. He’d apologized to the neighbors over the cattle
incident, and rounded up not a few of the cows on his own. And he loved Penny
and George. Disappointing them always upset him. His mother’s Jaguar had been a
disaster. He’d cried bitterly to Ginny about how angry Penny was with him. He
was heartbroken after George spanked him. Jasper had reduced himself to a mere
shadow of his former evil; sulking quietly alone in his room, or sitting
sullenly in the corner at family gatherings for weeks after those late summer
incidents.

Harry didn’t
believe for a minute that Jasper had actually intended the lemon drop folly to
be revenge against George; he didn’t think George believed it, either. George
knew better than anyone that Jasper wasn’t truly mean spirited. He just didn’t
have the experience, or the wisdom he needed to go along with his brains.
Jasper had a problem foreseeing all the consequences of his actions. In that
respect, he reminded Harry very much of some boys he knew well once, not so
long ago. But for all that, George was right, he didn’t know what it was like
to raise Jasper, and he was so incredibly grateful for it.

George, bewailing
his fate, dropped his head onto his arms and moaned. “It’s Percy cursing me
from beyond the grave, Harry. I’ve taken care of his family, given them the
best of everything. Penny and the children want for nothing. But I’m having
sex with his wife, and we both like it a lot. We’re getting better all of the
time and Percy’s spirit won’t rest.”

“She’s your wife
now, George.” Harry replied reasonably. “I think it’s quite all right if you
have sex with her, better if you enjoy it even. I’ll say Percy would be hard
pressed to argue that at this point.”

“That’s because
you’re not Percy.” George mumbled, glancing up from his folded arm table
cushion for a moment. “Percy was never hard pressed to argue anything. It was
his favorite occupation. He’s probably torn in two in the afterlife. Two
spirit Percys, one is laughing hysterically at me trying to control Jasper, who
is every bit as bad as Fred and I ever were at the same age, and the other half
is cursing me for doing it with his wife.”

“You’ve had too
much to drink.” Harry said clapping his old friend on the shoulder. “Go home
to your beautiful wife, and sleep it off. Everything will look better in the
morning.”

“I don’t think so,
Harry.” George mumbled into the table. “When she was his wife he kept making
her pregnant on accident. I can’t make her pregnant if my life depended on it.
Tell me, that’s not a curse?”

//

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